


Refugee / A Babe in Raffi's Arms

by VoluptuousPanic



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Angst, Crew as Family, Drabble, Found Family, Gen, Romulans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26641282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoluptuousPanic/pseuds/VoluptuousPanic
Summary: Regionalpancake puts out fanon catnip. I respond.
Relationships: Elnor & Raffi Musiker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31





	Refugee / A Babe in Raffi's Arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Regionalpancake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regionalpancake/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Downtime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23613715) by [Regionalpancake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regionalpancake/pseuds/Regionalpancake). 



> _“I repeat; all authorised refugees report to Alpha gate.”_
> 
> _The instruction blares through the spaceport air. Words echo off duratanium archways and into the heaving crowd below as the final rescue ship takes on its Romulan passengers._
> 
> _“Please, Enarrain Musiker. Please take him.” A frantic father pushes a wriggling bundle into Raffi’s arms._
> 
> _An ensign in hot pursuit shouts, “Sir! You can’t be here without authorisation!”_
> 
> _“I’ve no documents, but-“ the father's desperate gaze breaks Raffi’s heart._
> 
> _The XO nods._
> 
> _The baby wails._
> 
> _The man is dragged away._
> 
> _“Don’t suppose there’s anyone on Vashti who owes you a favour, JL?”_
> 
> [Regionalpancake's Downtime, Chapter 108](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23613715/chapters/64953901)

2382, Rom’lass

Raffi speaks the words aloud, to no one. The ensign is gone already, heading up the rough escort. She watches as the man is pushed bodily back through the departure gates. He is young, almost too young to be a father on this world where nothing seems to happen to anyone until they’re fifty or older. And he, like many who are turned away, does not come from the cities or teeming ports. Something in his way of speech, his way of being tells her so. Now he stands, bereft and alone on the concourse, and casts one single, long look before almost savagely pushing the heel of a hand against his eyes and turning away. 

Confined to the world of Starfleet and Empire counterparts, Raffi realizes, one forgets that Rom’lass and the other worlds in the Romulan system are populated by people. Just like Earth and Terran colonies: office workers, merchants, mechanics and carpenters, waitresses, farmers. Simple people who are not important. People who will be left behind without connections or other means to obtain exit documents. There is almost a decade yet, before it will end in fiery armageddon. That much they—Starfleet, the Empire—know. It even has a name already: the Hobus Crisis. Yet the people who have the least and who have the most to lose come in greater numbers with greater desperation, enter the evacuation lotteries, attempt to enter the spaceport. Twenty-seven times Raffi has done this already over the space of eighteen months and she cannot fathom how bad it will be before the end. Yet in all that time, this interaction has been the only successful breach. The Tal Shiar run a tight operation. She doesn’t want to know the particulars.

Raffi looks down at the child she holds haphazardly in her arms. Now that he has stopped screaming, having nearly made himself sick with it, he coughs and hiccups fitfully. He is not a baby, but a toddler, but still very small on this secretive world where growth is slow but prodigious, maturity comes late with many mysterious markers of significance, and life is long. His face is flushed ruddy green, tears already drying chalky white on round cheeks. He has all the necessary baby teeth, but has not yet had a first haircut. He is a beautiful child, no older than Gabe was the first time she left him alone with his father to return to duty. The thought comes with a pang of guilt. Gabe is almost ten now. She hasn’t seen him in nearly three years. 

“ _Eneh!_ ” the child wails again in this moment of silence.

“I think it’s just you and me, kid,” Raffi says, as gently as she can manage. She adjusts his weight in her arms and notices the tiny identity chip threaded onto a cord around his neck along with some sort of charm that together remind her of a scapular. At least there’s that much. He’ll have a name and a story when he gets wherever he’s going. Impulsively, she gathers him closer and kisses his head and he settles against her, warm and wary. 

“One more to go,” Raffi murmers to the LT at the gate as she passes through the transport hatch. “This is it for today. Get me a channel to Picard.”

2399, _La Sirena_

Some people, like Cris, can find their memories in the bottom of the bottle. Raffi uses booze to lose them. She snaps the paper seal to unscrew the lid and swim away as the transporter beam solidifies. It’s JL and what he’s gone to pick up on Vashti. He went down to recruit a warrior nun and has returned with a reedy, wary young Romulan, barely grown, who carries a blade and speaks the truth. She would know those eyes anywhere. He looks just like the man whose face she has never forgotten.


End file.
